Ariah (24 page)

I wanted him to decide for me, to tell me what to do. He’d made his suggestion, but I wanted him to lay it out for me. I was not brave enough to take responsibility for my own life. I changed the subject. “Can you believe the things she says sometimes?”

“
Who says?”

“
Your betrothed.”

“
I don’t listen when you two talk politics.”

“
She’s never even been arrested. Not once! Ever! How does that even happen?”

“
She’s lucky, I guess.”

“
I guess.” I picked at my fingernails. “What do you two talk about, if not politics?”

“
Ariah.”

“
You do talk to her, don’t you?”

He frowned at me. “Ariah.”

I dropped my face into my hands. “I’m sorry.”

He was quiet for a long moment. “We talk about her work. We talk about you. We talk about the future. We do talk. I am very fond of her.”

He was fond of her—very fond of her—but she loved him. It came bursting out of her whenever they were in the same room, whenever she looked at him. All he could give her was fondness. It was uneven. I couldn’t shake that it was unfair. But it was none of my business. I tried to remember that.

* * *

Shayat bought me a plum and watched me eat it while we walked through the market. “You’re so messy. You’ll stain your shirt.”

“
Then Parvi will make me another.”

She clucked her tongue at me. “He probably would. I don’t know what he sees in you.”

I laughed. “Shayat, can I ask you something?”

“
Yes, professor.”

“
It’s personal, this thing I want to ask.” She looked at me, apologetic, eyebrows raised. I rolled my eyes. “It’s not about you.”

“
Sure it isn’t.”

“
It isn’t! Look. What if…what if you thought someone was making a mistake, maybe a very big mistake, but it was personal. And you felt you couldn’t say anything. Or, rather, you knew you couldn’t without betraying someone else’s trust. What would you do?”

She looked over at me. “How can I give you advice without specifics?”

“
I can’t tell you specifics!”

“
Then I can’t give you advice.”

“
Fine.” I took another bite of the plum. “We make life so complicated. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.”

“
Complicated how?”

“
I told you I can’t give you specifics.”

She took my plum. She took three bites, and gave the remainder back to me. I frowned at her. “I bought it,” she said.

“
That was so rude.”

“
Well, it’s done now. Look, professor, your company is not so enthralling that I want to stand next to you while you mutter to yourself. Let’s talk about something else.”

“
All right. I think you’ve got Lothic down pretty well, though the irregular verbs still…”

She took the plum again. “Ugh, not languages. I’ll talk to you about anything but languages.”

“
Why didn’t you just buy it for yourself?”

“
I don’t know. I didn’t really want it until I saw you eat it, I guess.” She grinned at me and wiped the juice away with her sleeve. “Do me a favor, will you?”

“
Yes? No! Tell me what it is first.”

“
Visit with my father when I strike out. I worry about him being alone.”

I stopped walking. I felt a shift in the terrain of our friendship, a deepening of it. What did it mean? Where had we shifted? Shayat glanced at me over her shoulder. I read her. I didn’t mean to; it just happened. Our relationship shifted again.

She dropped the plum. “Did you just…are you…”

“
No! No, it’s not like that!”

“
Then what is it like?”

I swallowed nervously. I held my hands out to her. “Please, not out here.”

She narrowed her eyes at me. “What?”

“
I’ll…I’ll tell you, just…please, not out here.”

She frowned at me, steely and wary. Mistrustful. Shayat was nobody’s fool, and she did not like surprises. But I had banked on her curiosity, and her curiosity won out. “All right. Fine. We’ll go back to the shop, but you have to tell me what’s going on.”

“
I will. I promise.”

“
You remember that you promised,” she said as she brushed past me.

When we reached Parvi’s shop, she led me up the stairs to her room. She closed the curtains and shut the door behind us. She leaned against the wall with her arms crossed against her chest. “You’re a shaper?”

She asked it without any hint of embarrassment or hesitation. I knew it was coming, but I was shocked at the breach. “No! Yes? It’s complicated.”

“
You read me on the street.”

“
I…yes. I did. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” I regained my footing just the slightest bit. I stood up the slightest bit taller. “Shayat, that was rude, but I have no obligation to tell you my gifts.”

“
You do if you can’t control them.”

It hit me like a slap. “Look, I…I have it. The gift. But I wasn’t trained for it. I hid it? Sort of. I’m trained as a mimic, and this, it just slips out sometimes.”

Her eyes widened. She crossed halfway to me. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Ariah, shapers need training more than anyone else. You know that.”

“
But a shaper’s life? The cost is so high!”

“
What? Don’t be stupid! So you can’t get married. So people know your gift. If you don’t get training, you’ll drive everyone away.”

“
But if I get the training, I’m isolated anyway.”

She stood there silent, chewing her lip. She glanced down at her feet. “I never thought of it that way.”

And a decision was made. Just like that, that fast. “I am going to get training. I am. Outside the Empire. I am going to get training, and then I’ll just live my life, and things like this won’t happen anymore.”

Shayat looked up at me. “You’re going to come back a trained shaper and keep it secret? That doesn’t seem right.”

“
If we owe no explanation of the gifts to the Qin, I don’t see why I owe an explanation to us either.”

“
We should know! I should’ve known!”

“
Why?”

“
So I could…you know why! I have secrets, my father has secrets. I thought they were safe!”

I crumpled to the floor. I was a gangly pile of jutting limbs. “That is why I want to keep it to myself. People know, and they won’t let themselves get close. People know, and all they can think about are their secrets, the things they wouldn’t want me to find out, and then I’ll find them out, and all that’s left is distance. Shayat, I don’t know anything about you or Parvi that you haven’t told me. I swear. I don’t want to know anything about you that you haven’t told me.”

“
That’s not true! You read me on the street!”

“
It just happened! What, your gifts have never slipped out?”

She sighed. She made uninterpretable gestures with her hand. She sighed again. “You are maddening.”

“
I’m sorry.”

“
Every time I think I understand you, you pull the rug out from underneath me.”

“
I’m sorry.”

She sighed again. “Well, at least you’re not boring. You’re serious about getting training?”

“
I am.”

“
Good,” she said. “Good. Your secret’s safe with me. I hope mine are safe with you.”

CHAPTER 17

Dirva and Nisa were ready to marry the second we drank the wine. The only thing that stood in the way was logistics. A razehm willing to officiate an elvish wedding needed to be found and negotiated with. Legal documents had to be drawn up. Nisa and Dirva each had to find the time to write their genealogies. Dirva and Nisa had to find adequate housing for a joint life.

All these things take time, but not as much time as you would think. Dirva pulled strings and called in favors for the legalities quite quickly. Nisa leveraged the goodwill of the borough to find a suitable apartment without much trouble. It took them no more than three weeks to get things in place. And then it was a matter of waiting, because ultimately the marriage happened on Vathorem’s schedule and not theirs.

Vathorem was the only part of the wedding Dirva could not rush, the only element out of his control. Dirva had written Vathorem the night Nisa’s parents gave approval, some weeks before I gave approval myself. He had sent the news in a clockwork bird, which, though expensive, was both faster and more reliable than the post. Vathorem sent the bird back with congratulations and a promise to attend. He sent a promise, but politics were politics, he said, and the red queen was the red queen. He would send word when he was able to get away.

Three and a half months after all the preparations had been nailed down, a battered clockwork bird clattered against the kitchen window. Dirva and Nisa sat in the other room; he was reading a book I’d pilfered from the Library, and she was drawing schematics for something that made no sense to me. I, as luck would have it, happened to be in the kitchen. The bird landed heavily on the windowsill. It skidded off the ledge and reappeared a few seconds later. It ruffled its copper feathers. Its sightless ball-bearing eyes blinked. It tapped the windowpane with its beak. When I let it in, it hopped into my hand. It was docile. Its mainspring had little tension left; it had made a long journey on a single winding. “Dirva!”

“
Yes?”

“
Dirva, a bird came!”

He was around the corner in a heartbeat. He took it from me, cradling it gently as if it were a bird of flesh and bone. The pressure panel, which made up the bird’s belly popped open with just a little coaxing. The mechanical life went out of the creature, and Dirva fished out the note. “He left about a month ago,” Dirva said. “He’ll be here in two weeks.” He laughed; a bright smile spread across his face. “Ha! Two weeks. Nisa, two weeks!”

I was happy for him, I was, but the news filled me with dread. Two weeks and my life would be uprooted.

Nisa came into the kitchen. The air in the room was thick with happiness. Her laughter and his anticipation drowned out my own feelings. Dirva pulled her into a tight embrace. She clung to him, her head in the crook of his neck. They stayed like that for a handful of seconds, and then she remembered that I was there. She pulled away, laughing, unable to look me in the eye. “I’ll tell my parents,” she said. “I’ll tell the landlord.”

When Nisa left an hour or so later, my confused feelings crept back up. I hated that I felt that way. I couldn’t think of a time I’d seen Dirva so happy or so hopeful. I didn’t understand it, where all this happiness and hopefulness came from, but it was there, and I couldn’t stand to dilute it with my own worries. I slipped out of the apartment, and I stayed at Parvi’s shop until the approach of curfew.

Dirva was waiting for me when I returned. He sat at the kitchen table trying to bring the messenger bird back to life.

“
You need a key to wind it,” I said.

“
I know that, Ariah,” he said, irritated. I smiled in spite of myself. “I am trying to determine what size key I need to wind it.” He set the bird down. “Sit. Let’s talk.”

“
Oh, no, that’s all right. I’m tired. I think I’ll turn in.”

He caught me by the wrist when I tried to escape. “We don’t have to talk if you would rather not, but you do not need to hide it for my sake.”

I laughed. It was a pitiful thing, weak and helpless. I sat down in the chair next to him. “I am happy for you.”